


Promethean Thieves

by YesBothWays



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Science Girlfriends, cophine - Freeform, oneshotcophine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 15:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7444384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post S4 finale fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promethean Thieves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [letbylinesbebylines](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=letbylinesbebylines).



> I wrote this for the One-Shot Cophine FanFic Review. Submissions aren't due until July 18th, and new fic writers are especially invited to participate! So I hope a lot of readers will go write something of your own! 
> 
> http://oneshotcophine.tumblr.com/post/147136499967/one-shot-cophines-first-annual-fanfic-contest
> 
> Disclaimer: Cosima, Delphine, and all elements of Orphan Black appearing in this story are property of BBC America and its affiliates. The author of this fic assumes no ownership of these characters. There is no financial gain made from this nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only. No copyright infringement is intended.

            They were careful. Delphine treated Cosima, ran tests on her computer at night, and deleted the data as best she could. As soon as she was strong enough, Cosima helped on Delphine’s current project developing transgenic skin grafts that could slowly introduce new genetic material into the entirety of the recipient’s skin cells. Cosima knew failed attempts would be horrifying – grievous burns and wounds healed only to turn cancerous and consume healthy tissues. But successes were promising. It was easy enough to play their parts as two scientists enamored of the same potential. Other than that, they tried to appear relatively estranged, even though they were clinging to one another silently everyday.

            Cosima had been about to leave Delphine’s hut that night when a commotion slowly rose within the camp. Delphine had gone to see what it was. She looked worn out as she returned, after only minutes away.

            “What’s up?” Cosima said.

            “Nothing,” Delphine said. “I’m tired.”

            Cosima watched Dephine draw out her chair, focused already on her computer as if distracted with work. Delphine placed both hands on her desk and let herself down as if her body had grown heavy. She was lying. Over the past weeks, Delphine had told Cosima as much of the truth as she knew. Suddenly, they were back at the beginning of their relationship. Cosima crouched down beside Delphine, as if she were trying to look at the computer along with her.

            “Delphine, what? Tell me,” Cosima said softly.

            Delphine looked over Cosima’s face with a willed steadiness in her expression that brought a distinct edge of fear into Cosima’s mind.

            “I think your treatment is well established now. I can’t imagine the gene therapy going off track,” Delphine said.

            “Yeah. It looks like you’re stuck with me,” Cosima joked with a grin.

            Delphine’s face looked pale. Cosima gave her a look that said she wasn’t going to let her keep secrets. She turned to face Cosima’s dogged inquiry.

            “Our outfit here is going under review, from the top,” Delphine said.

            “Okay,” Cosima offered.

            “I am to be sent away to the mainland. We will be separated, you and I.”

            Cosima stood up. She touched her back out of habit, where it used to feel tender. Placing a steady pressure against tissues that used to be weak and now were strong was one of the ways she was trying to teach herself that she was well. Her hand came to her chest, and she knew it was pressing at her heart and not her lungs. She found herself nearly crying, as if her body had processed this news faster than her mind.

            “Am I in danger?” Cosima said.

            “No. Not that I can see. You will be kept on here, where you can’t reach your sisters. They’re not quick to waste a brilliant scientist.”

            “Are you in danger?”

            “I’m an investment. Maybe one day, they’ll be appeased with the return. Though I doubt it. The powerful, they feel entitled to whatever they receive, no matter how generous. Even while they keep track of everything they’ve given.”

            The calm in Delphine’s voice put Cosima on edge. She knew Delphine read her response easily, because Delphine stood up. She held out her hand as if to calm Cosima.

            “Cosima, you must not try anything crazy,” Delphine said.

            “Like something Sarah would do?” Cosima said, giving Dephine a defiant, sidelong glance.

            “Like something you would do. I know how you are when people you love are cornered. You can’t fight this. Please, promise me.”

            Cosima could see the sincerity in Delphine’s love for her even as she read her resolve. She was deeply perplexed by Delphine as she had been in the past. She found this provoking.

            “So you’ll just go? Simple as that?”

            “Cosima, there is no other choice.”

            “You’re handing over your life? To a creepy Victorian psycho who shouldn’t even be alive? Who’s been stealing more life from young scientists for decades?”

            “It’s nothing to do with how I feel. I have no power here, in this place. Neither do you. This is just our reality now.”

            Her logic was distorted. Possibilities were created, not just recognized. They were dynamic, not static. Cosima could not tolerate a world without endless possibilities. Other scientists spoke this way all the time, said the world was fixed and unchangeable.

            “You can’t ask me to stay here and be a prisoner on this island – and to let you go God knows where. I’m alive against all odds. If I can’t be who I am, then what’s the difference between this and if I had died?”

            “How can you make any such comparison? We’re alive. Both of us. It’s a miracle that we ever met one another at all. If it weren’t for all of this, we wouldn’t have.”

            “So you’re the optimist, then? And I should be grateful that someone saw fit to make me, even though I’m considered intellectual property?”

            “Look, I’m not saying anything like that. Everyone is constrained by their position. There is always more control in the hands of others than in our own. There’s room for self-determination within limits. But if you try to change those limits, there are consequences.”

            Cosima could feel her jaw tensing in rage. She wished Sarah were here – anyone who would understand her absolute need to fight for control of her own life – Helena, Felix, Mrs. S., Beth. That thought made her swallow hard and grow unsteady. Beth tried to free them all, then she died to keep them safe from what she provoked. That was the world Delphine saw around them – the world that killed Beth.

            “We still have a few more days,” Delphine said.

            Cosima could feel her heart pounding, and her body flared with a desperate heat. The sensation made her remember her fights with Delphine in the past. But somehow she could see the sadness and brokenness in Delphine now, concealed under a veil of rationality and a stoic resolve. Cosima swallowed hard to keep herself from talking, the heat of her words turning to a feeling of pain as they burned inside her chest. She felt as if she had swallowed a cupful of sun. She crossed the room, suddenly, her hip banging into the chair and moving it out of the way.

            Delphine straightened her back, startled with the sudden motion. But she also let Cosima step in close to her and bring her hands to her face. Cosima saw a look of deep sorrow that had been hidden before clearly revealed in Delphine’s expression. And Cosima leaned in and kissed Delphine as tenderly as she could with her whole body burning with a passion that wanted desperately to turn into anger.

            The kiss seemed to make everything quiet. They had spent the last weeks stealing touches and kissing a few times with a sort of quiet reverence that came mingled with a stifling fear. Now, the camp was entirely preoccupied. Everyone was rushing to brush up their projects. Fear of scrutiny made them draw inward. The two of them were no longer close to anyone’s thoughts. So their kiss lingered, and everything felt easy between them, as if they had stepped past the forces that wanted to push them apart.

            Delphine’s mouth felt cold against Cosima’s. Cosima remembered distinctly the heat of Delphine’s mouth touching her own on the night she came to this place, even as the heat from her body seemed to scorch Cosima’s skin. Cosima had grown delirious in the dark woods. She clutched Charlotte and carried the cure as far away as she could. A thousand heightened images of cells self-replicating and spirals of DNA transforming overcame her mind and drowned out the sights around her. The images grew more vivid and strange, until she saw a thousand clones spinning out of the original Leda genome. Science was mixed with story as in the half-brilliant and half-mad book she had read in the days before. She imagined herself a Promethean thief who had stolen away their capacity to heal from gods who were now angry. She felt certain that she would have to die to pay the cost of this gift. Time slipped when she saw Delphine, and a light came pouring into her eyes that seemed like it should have burned her mind and yet felt strangely cold. She seemed to find herself back at that moment when she felt herself wanting to slip away and saw Delphine somehow there with her. When she felt the pressure of Delphine’s body against her own, she knew that she was still here. The heat came pouring into her from Delphine’s body felt almost intolerable. She shivered and gripped her jaw to try to keep her teeth from chattering. Everything hurt. And in her mind that was still altered, she imagined herself receiving another stolen gift that night – the gift of fire.

            Delphine felt cold now, and Cosima drew her close. Delphine brought her arms around Cosima. The way Delphine held her placed a distinct pressure on Cosima’s low back, where she could once feel the epithelial tissue being tangled and distorted by her manipulated DNA and now could feel this growing healthy. They were not going to let go again until fear finally forced them. They came to the bed and kissed more, already beginning to undress one another.

            When Delphine leaned down over her, Cosima saw her shoulders trembling. She remembered a moment from the first time they went to bed together. She was sat on the edge of the bed, and Delphine leaned down to remove Cosima’s skirt. Cosima could have sworn that she saw Delphine’s shoulders trembling and reached out to touch her. Delphine had kissed her, and Cosima pulled her in close. She had not been able to feel Delphine shoulders shaking under her hands and lost the thought. She felt Dephine’s shoulders shaking vividly now. She held her harder and closer than ever before. She gathered the two of them into the bed, under layers of covers.

            They stole a handful of hours of peace. Cosima feared an argument would erupt between them again that night, but Delphine was quiet. She looked closely at Cosima’s hands, her face, her shoulders, any part of her that she could see easily in the cold room. She kissed every place and carefully studied her.

            “I’ve been waiting my whole life to be who I really am,” Delphine said, “And now I’ve run out of time.“

           

            They would run. The idea of leaving Charlotte wasn’t discussed. They would be slow and might be caught. Still, they took risks to gather what they needed to have a chance. The camp buzzed with a dangerous energy like a hive of hornets but was distracted. Cosima nabbed lights. Delphine stole a gun that would be missed, so they planned to leave that night. They thought they were in time. But they weren’t.

            Westmoreland’s presence in the camp was announced by a wave of absolute silence. They both knew what it was. He came to Delphine’s hut first, announcing his presence with a polite knock. Delphine’s face went blank. She went and opened the door.

            Cosima took in the sight of him. He carried himself with a dignified air, almost regal. He walked with a strange gait, leaned to one side. His hair was pale silver, so ancient it looked almost clear. Even bundled in coats, parts of him were visibly synthetic including his lips that were perfectly red. One of his eyes was a synthetic, pure white with no iris or pupil. Parts of him were elderly and others vividly youthful. Cosima could see why they were working on skin grafts. There were lines in his neck where his skin tone changed from weathered to new, washed out white. He had electrodes and wires running over the back of his neck, no doubt collecting data at every moment. He was a goldmine of experimental information, a manmade anomaly.

            He took off his hat and sat himself down in Delphine’s chair. He scrolled through her notes. Delphine stepped to his shoulder and highlighted the important bits. He seemed focused, scholarly, like a young man eager to prove himself at Oxford. Cosima felt almost dizzy and steadied herself with a hand on the wooden table.

            “Even distracted, you’ve made more progress than anyone else I’ve tried,” Westmoreland said.

            “I’ve had help,” Delphine said in a tone that challenged his subtle accusation.

            Westmoreland turned and considered Cosima.

            “The recipient of my three missing cultures, no doubt,” Westmoreland said.

            Cosima saw Delphine’s hand stray to her pocket and knew she was reaching for the gun there. She slid her hand on the table towards Delphine a couple inches, a swift movement that Delphine noticed. She stood waiting.

            “Except for my social ailments that still prove incurable,” Cosima said, mimicking his words written decades before.

            She saw a flicker of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He respected her, she could see, and an intuition flashed in her mind. What would Sarah do in this moment?

            “I suppose I’d apologize for the theft, but to be honest, I wanted to live and could give a shit about anything else,” Cosima said.

            Westmoreland smiled and leaned back, relaxed and considering Cosima. She held his eerie gaze. She let him think they were alike, this man who orchestrated her invention. He would see the entire world match his own desires. She should find it easy to get him to see her in the same way.

            “Is that what has moved you through one breakthrough after another over these past months?” Westmoreland asked her.

            “That and Dr. Cormier,” Cosima said. “There’s no accounting for a fortuitous collaboration.”

            “So it would seem,” Westmoreland said.

            He turned back to consider more of Delphine’s work, considering cultures under a microscope.   Cosima hoped he was now seeing it as the collaborative work it actually was. Delphine stood silent and still, ready to kill this man, Cosima imagined, and waiting to see how this would pan out. Their roles were reversed. She tried to silently convey to Delphine that she should hold steady and knew that Delphine understood.

            Westmoreland stood, finally. He gathered his hat. He was as casual as a man leaving a corner store.

            “Let’s see what other obstacles this fortuitous collaboration can overturn,” Westmoreland said. “I’ll have you both sent to join our team in Switzerland.”

            “I doubt you’ve seen the best of us yet,” Cosima said.

            Westmoreland liked the challenge, Cosima could see. They were establishing a game between them. He wanted what she and Delphine could create together and thought he could control them. Cosima felt how confident she and Westmoreland both were and knew this would make one hell of a game.

            “I suppose you want the young Charlotte sent with you,” Westmoreland said. “And best not to have her separated from her new caretakers. Children grow strangely when they grow alone.”


End file.
